Should i season steak before cooking




















Cervantez is a fan of pepper, as well, and recommends combining both in equal quantities. A lot of salt and pepper always falls off during the cooking process and doesn't always penetrate the meat. Do this before you let the steaks rest so the seasoning has time to work its way deep into the meat.

Chef Juan Carlos of SoBou in New Orleans likes to add in a bit of olive oil as well, which he says help gets better sear or griddle marks. If you do decide to add some fat, stick with olive oil, not butter, says Angelo Auriana. That is, of course, assuming you have a solid starting product. The best way to go, however, is hardwood or hardwood lump charcoal.

Chef Christian Ragano thinks this is one of the most important things to remember. Ted Hopson, chef and co-owner of L. Insert the metal tester into the steak, leave it for five seconds, then pull it out and touch it to your lips or inner wrist.

The internal temp of the steak will tell you how done it is. If it is cold, your steak is rare, if it is just warm, medium rare, slightly hot, medium, etc No more pushing on it to test it—what happens when you hit a muscle knot? It also allows you to keep a careful eye on how the cooking is coming along: steak is too precious a commodity to risk incinerating.

Nigel is also the only chef to take any notice of McGee's eminently simple suggestion of pressing down on the steak as it cooks, "to improve thermal contact". I don't find his steak at all dry, and the crust is the best of any save the Ducasse masterpiece.

For quick, weeknight cooking , you can't go far wrong with his recipe although I'd pre-salt the steak, rather than oiling it — but for a steak that really qualifies as perfect, read on Take the steaks out of the fridge 2 hours before you're planning to cook, and allow them to come to room temperature.

Heat a heavy-based griddle pan or frying pan over a medium-high heat. Pat the steak dry with kitchen towel and then use tongs to press the fatty edge on to the hot pan until nicely browned.

Meanwhile spread a thin layer of salt and a sprinkle of coarse pepper on a plate. Put the steak on the plate, and turn to coat the steak lightly, then put it flat-side down into the pan. Cook for 90 seconds on each side, pressing down with a spatula, until both sides are well browned.

Add the butter, garlic and thyme to the pan and, when melted, use them to baste the steak, turning it every minute until it's done to your liking: a 4cm steak should take about 6 minutes for medium-rare, but always do it by eye. Take out of the pan and leave somewhere warm to rest for 5—10 minutes, then serve. Would steak be part of your final meal, or is it overrated? What are your must-have accompaniments painfully hot crispy frites, steamed spinach and English mustard for me, please , and given our proudly beefy heritage, why are American steakhouses so much better than most British ones?

How to cook the perfect steak. Would a steak cooked just the way you like it be the cornerstone of your final meal, or is it the most overrated dish in the world? Felicity's perfect steak. Photograph: Felicity Cloake. Topics Meat Word of Mouth blog Food blogposts. Reuse this content. Who's right? To test this, I bought myself a a half dozen thick-cut bone-in ribeyes I love the smile butchers get in their eyes when you do this and salted them at 10 minute intervals before searing them in a hot skillet.

So the last steak went into a pan immediately after salting, while the first steak went in a full 50 minutes after salting.

All of the steaks were allowed to rest at room temperature for the full 50 minutes, ensuring that they were all at the same starting temperature before cooking began. The results? The steaks that were salted immediately before cooking and those that were salted and rested for at least 40 minutes turned out far better than those that were cooked at any point in between.

What was up with those 10, 20, and 30 minute steaks? Here's what's going on. Not only that, but I found that even after the liquid has been reabsorbed, it doesn't stop there. As the meat continues to rest past 40 minutes, the salt and brine will slowly work their way deeper and deeper into the muscle structure, giving you built-in seasoning beyond just the outer surface you'd get from cooking right after salting or salting the skillet. Indeed, the absolute best steak I had was one that I had salted on both sides then allowed to rest on a rack overnight in the refrigerator uncovered.

As the salt makes its way back into the meat, you'll probably also notice that it becomes a deeper color. That's because the dissolved proteins scatter light differently than they did when they were still whole. Moral of the story: If you've got the time, salt your meat for at least 40 minutes and up to overnight before cooking. If you haven't got 40 minutes, it's better to season immediately before cooking.

Cooking the steak anywhere between three and 40 minutes after salting is the worst way to do it. There's not all that much new ground to cover here—we all know that searing absolutely positively does not "seal in juice," right?

It serves as a means of adding color and flavor and enhancing texture. That's all. We also know that the absolute best way to sear is to flip your meat frequently as it cooks so that it cooks evenly from both sides, cooks faster, and develops less of the gray, overcooked zone that you get from a traditional one-side-then-the-other-side sear, right?

But what's the best medium to sear in? Butter, or oil? Some claim that a mixture of both is best, often using the excuse that butter alone has too low a smoke point—it begins to burn and turn black at temperature too low to properly sear meat in. Somehow, cutting the butter with a bit of oil is supposed to raise this smoke point.

Unfortunately, that's not true. It's because when we say that "butter is burnt," we're not really talking about the butter as a whole—we're talking specifically about the milk proteins in butter. The little white specks you see when you melt it. It's these milk proteins that burn when you get them too hot, and believe me—they couldn't care less whether they're being cooked in butterfat or in oil.

Either way, they burn. What all this means is that the best cooking medium for a steak is actually plain old oil. At least to start. Adding butter to the pan just a minute or two before you finish cooking is not a bad idea. This is just enough time to allow the buttery flavor and texture butter is creamier tasting than oil because it has a higher percentage of saturated fat to coat the meat, but not so long that it will burn excessively, producing acrid undertones.

So for searing, let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up: Get oil smoking hot in a heavy pan. Add salted and peppered steak and cook, flipping every 15 to 30 seconds until the desired internal temperature is almost reached.



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